I've been covering the business of news, information and entertainment in one form or another for more than 10 years. In February 2014, I moved to San Francisco to cover the tech beat. My primary focus is social media and digital media, but I'm interested in other aspects, including but not limited to the sharing economy, lifehacking, fitness & sports tech and the evolving culture of the Bay Area. In past incarnations I've worked at AOL, Conde Nast Portfolio, Radar and WWD. Circle me on Google+, follow me on Twitter or send me tips or ideas at jbercovici@forbes.com.

In leaping to oppose the union, which will require regulatory approval from both the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department, consumer advocate groups have been quick to let fly the most reliable arrow in their quivers, the fear that consolidation will lead to high prices for customers.

“An enlarged Comcast would be the bully in the schoolyard, able to dictate terms to content creators, Internet companies, other communications networks that must interconnect with it, and distributors who must access its content,” says John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge. “By raising the costs of its rivals and business partners, an enlarged Comcast would raise costs for consumers, who ultimately pay the bills.”

“The $45 billion dollar deal would turn the already oversized Comcast empire into a colossus,” echoes Common Cause. “The combined firms would have the muscle to push competitors out of the marketplace, leaving consumers exposed to continuing price hikes and declining levels of service.”

But consolidation doesn’t always lead to higher prices. Look at Amazon and Walmart, which use their might to squeeze producers and keep things cheap at the checkout.

Comcast is no Amazon, but if there’s one thing this deal is about, it’s giving Comcast the leverage to resist paying ever-higher fees to TV networks and their media-conglomerate owners for the right to carry their programming. With the average cost of pay TV service projected to hit $123 a month next year, cable and satellite operators know they can’t keep passing increases in their programming costs along to consumers without driving more of them to cancel their TV packages altogether and rely on internet services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime for their entertainment.

Might it have turned out differently if Time Warner had 30 million households on its side rather than 11 million?

We won’t find out right away. To win approval for its 2009 acquisition of NBC Universal, Comcast had to agree to a host of restrictive conditions. Since then, as the research firm MoffettNathanson notes this morning, Comcast has made a practice of “playing nice” in carriage negotiations, especially those that involve its own channels and other distributors. Any deal it cuts with Justice and the FCC is bound to require Comcast to remain on its best behavior for a few more years. (That also applies to observing so-called net neutrality, ie. not favoring its own programming over competitors’ on its broadband networks.)

But make no mistake: Comcast knows that its long-term health requires having the clout to wrangle favorable terms from Viacom, Disney, CBS, Time Warner and other programmers. There’s nothing like a good hostage for gaining leverage in a negotiation. Comcast just acquired 8 million of them.

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